Musician of Sorrows
by insertappropropriatenamehere
Summary: DISCONTINUED Kanda became a Noah... somehow. Track him as he tries to figure out the EFFFF he does now.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey, Earl-sama! Look at who I found!" Rhode chirped, dragging in an unconscious, bedraggled black lump behind her.

"Isn't that an Exorcist?" the Millennium Earl chirped sweetly, gaining a slightly murderous look. "That one who ran away from Nara?"

"He's a Noah now!" Rhode chirped. "Our brother!"

"Rhode, there are already thirteen-" the Earl froze as Rhode dragged the figure up by its hair and proudly showed him the black crosses already beginning to form. It also wore a familiar black coat.

"It's Musician-kun!" the Earl sweatdropped. Wasn't the Musician supposed to be dead?

Hey, wait… this guy wasn't the old one, Mana-something or other.

"Let go of me!" the new Noah woke up violently and began thrashing around, cursing. "Let the &(#)&$ go of me, )($)ing (#)$&(#!"

"Now, now, former-Exorcist-kun, be nice," the Earl said. Oh, how he loved his family. "Did you destroy his Innocence, Rhode?"

"No, he stuck it in some ugly, gross old lady," Rhode complained. "I mean, he just stabbed her! Well, she seemed to be fine, and then we had to run away from all the other exorcists in the place-"

"Shut. Up," the former exorcist growled, clutching his head as if in pain.

"Aha! You're Kanda Yuu-pon!" the Earl exclaimed cheerfully. "Now shut up."

To everyone's surprise, even Kanda's, he shut (the hell) up.

"Now give me one good reason not to kill you as well and turn you into an akuma," the Earl said. Lero hopped over. "Lero!"

"Because I know how the exorcists think and how they will react," Kanda offered. "And because they will be demoralized if they know that one of their own has… defected."

"I have the other Noah for that-"

"_IT'S THAT EXORCIST_!" Tyki said suddenly, walking in. "You were with the clown one."

"_Dead_ clown one," Kanda muttered. "Thank God for that-" He broke off, confused. Shouldn't he be thinking just a _little_ bit differently?

The Noah, of course. Kanda resolved to blame _everything_ on the Noah.

"Hmmm? A new Noah?" Tyki lit another cancer stick and began to closely examine his new counterpart. "Fourteenth?"

Kanda pulled out the cancer stick, duly blamed the Noah, and threw it away.

"My cigarette!" Tyki dove after it, and Rhode followed, forgetting to let go of Kanda.

"Is it sweet- oh, never mind," Skin said, stepping from the Ark and almost into (_into_! Kanda's mind shrieked) Tyki.

"We have a new member!" Rhode chirped, shoving him in front of Skin. "Yuu-chan!"

"You're that exorcist I was hunting," Skin said ominously, cracking his knuckles.

Rhode pulled up Kanda's bangs. He shivered; her hands were _cold_!

Skin poked the crosses, drawing out a hiss; he had sent a spark through what was essentially an open wound. (for any of you who don't know, it's really, really painful)

"Let _go_ of me," Kanda complained, pulling his hair out of her grasp. He resolved to cut it sometime soon.

"EXORCIST! Earl-tama! An exorcist!" a pair of trigger-happy idiots with guns screamed, firing. The whole group ducked.

"BAKA!" Kanda screamed.

"This is Yuu-kun, the new 'Fourteenth'," the Earl introduced him yet again.

"He's kinda cute," Lulubell said. Kanda had the feeling that his Noah was giving him information on his fellow Noah.

"Noah-sama Noah-sama Noah-sama!" a Level Four akuma said. He could see its imprisoned soul, and, oddly enough, did not find it revolting. Instead, he felt a kind of dark satisfaction and amusement at its predicament.

Blame the Noah.

"So, let's go celebrate!" the Earl chirped. "Chinese, Mexican, or French food?"

"So the exorcist Kanda Yuu has become the new Fourteenth?" Director Leverrier asked.

The messenger nodded.

"You are dismissed." He watched the messenger, a Finder who had been with the exorcist on his last mission, disappeared.

"This could be troublesome and demoralizing," his aide offered.

"But for now, we will simply schedule a visit to headquarters to search for more possible subvertives, Link," Leverrier said. "And for information on the Noah, of course."

Most of the Dark Order did not take the news calmly. Komui looked out at the central hall of the Order as a near riot occurred.

"What do you mean?" Reever demanded. He'd just been on the phone listening to Bak's description of Allen's new Innocence. "Impossible!"

"Kanda has become a liability. He is to be exterminated at all costs," Komui replied, feeling weary. "In the words of the Central Administration, of course."

"But that's not like him!" Tapp protested.

"It is if he is a Noah," Reever said bitterly. He seemed resigned.

"He'll be fine," an unfamiliar voice spoke up from the shadows. The group turned.

"General Cross!"

Suddenly, the hall froze. Several people fainted.

Amazing what the sudden appearance of a supposedly missing, incredibly mysterious general can do.

"Hey, Yuu, did you hear? _That_ General appeared," Tyki called.

Kanda looked up from where he was sitting. "Cross? The one my predecessor endorsed?"

"Yep," Rhode chirped. "The sorcerer. Hey, you're reading!"

"It's just a treatise on certain types of binding magics. I'm trying to figure out how to release the Ark," Kanda said. "Especially since most of my 'ability' as the Musician is missing, including most of what I'd use to move the Ark."

"Cross has it!" Jasdero cried.

"It has to be him!" Debitto cried. "Hihihihihihi!"

Kanda threw the book at them. "Stop laughing, dammit!"

"Is that a guide to playing the flute for beginners I see?" Tyki asked. "Wow, your predecessor must have given away a lot of your skill, if you need to learn how to use an instrument."

"Shut up," Kanda grumbled.

"Please explain why we're going to Japan again?" Rabi asked calmly. He already knew why, of course.

"General Cross told us that he was going to Japan to take care of some business and left," Linali said. "We're to follow him, either to help him or drag him back."

"Hey," Allen spoke up. "Isn't the Earl in Japan?"

Realization hit everyone like Cross's hammer. "Kanda."

"The exorcists are mobilizing, the exorcists are mobilizing," the Earl sang. "They're coming!♥"

Kanda paused from trying to draw a complicated diagram on the ground. "That's not a good thing, Earl-sama," he said calmly. "On-" the diagram exploded, and he cursed. "Some help. Please?"

"Tyki-pon!♥" the Earl chirped. "I have a job for you. And Yuu-kun, you should just give up; you'll live longer.♥"

"If my predecessor learned, I also want to know. And Tyki's not here, is he-"

"Behind you, brat." Kanda automatically jumped and kicked out behind him, slamming into his fellow Noah's (not that he felt that way yet) face and effectively knocking him through the door, where he promptly vanished somewhere in the world.

"Then you take his job, Yuu-kun!♥" the Earl shoved a card in his face.

"Hell no!"

"I need a diagnostic of what abilities you have left,♥" the Earl offered.

"No."

"If you do I'll teach you magic.♥"

"But, Earl-sama!"

He went anyways. The Earl went back to knitting and took some high-fat popcorn to watch the show.

Bookman returned from wherever he had been. Rabi immediately recognized the silk-wrapped bundle in his arms.

"That's Mugen!"

"Kanda's Innocence?" Allen asked, surprised. "What's it doing here?"

"General Cross asked us to bring it," Bookman said irritably. "I have no idea why."

"Next stop, Shanghai," the conductor said.

"We get off and take a ship to Japan, right?" Allen asked.

"You're gaining a sense of direction," Linali joked.

"Hey!" Allen protested.

Kanda walked up to the village, trailed by several akuma, all at least a respectable hundred and fifty feet back. The one akuma who'd been too slow had ended up a smoking crater.

It looked ordinary; men working in fields, women helping, children playing with dolls or kites. And yet they were all human.

There was not an akuma in sight.

Behind him, in the relative cover of a sparse forest, the akuma hit a barrier. Kanda realized he'd only been let through because he still qualified as 'human', no matter how vaguely.

'_Stay back,_' he thought to the akuma, feeling them retreat. Meanwhile, the people were staring. Maybe it was because he looked androgynous now that he no longer bothered to keep his hair up. Maybe it was the way he had apparently zoned out. Maybe it was the fact that he still wore an exorcist's uniform.

He made sure his bangs hid his crosses and walked on. Misaki village was home to several accommodators and quite a few protective talismans, all of which protected the village's inhabitants and refugees from the rest of Japan and akuma. The Earl wanted him to take out the accommodators and disable all other defenses so that the akuma could invade.

He pushed aside the fact that he'd been raised in a protected community much like this one and instead concentrated on following Earl-sama's orders. The same Earl that had caused the destruction of just about everything he had once cared for. '_For your own good_,' a voice at the back of his head hissed. '_Never forgive the Innocence. It is the devil_.'

Strange. Mugen hadn't seemed like much of one.

'_It was deceiving you,_' the voice whispered. '_It is the devil._'

'_Shut up,'_ he thought back.

A girl walked up to him. He stared at her blankly.

"General Cross is waiting for you," she informed him in Japanese.

'_Oh, shit.'_

'_I told you the Innocence is the devil.' _

'_Shut up!' _

"There's no need to tell him anymore, Kiri-chan," General Cross had arrived. "Go out and play now."

"What are you doing here." The words came out as a statement.

"Searching for more people like you. Accommodators, but willing to leave their villages. Tyki killed a lot of them, you know, before you joined him."

"That has absolutely nothing to do with me," Kanda retorted.

"But it does," General Tiedoll/Theodore said, Mari following him. "How did you end up like this?"

Kanda thought of the dead lotus in his former room at the Order and chose not to answer.

"The flower," Cross guessed, smirking. "I should have known. While it was alive, it kept the Noah from expressing itself."

"Why did you allow yourself to become a Noah, Kanda?" Mari asked.

Kanda pulled the flute from his sleeve just as the three exorcists pulled out their respective Innocence. "How did you find out about the flower?"

"Flute?" Cross asked, completely ingnoring Kanda's question. "Interesting choice. Invocate: Judgement!"

The exorcist corpse known as Maria walked out.

"Invocate: Garden of Eden!"

"Invocate: Noel Organon!"

"Kuso!" Kanda threw a piece of paper at Cross.

"This diagram is faulty-" the exorcist General began.

"On-!" The paper blew up.

"_You got me dirty,"_ Cross growled, apparently unharmed. "_Die_."

Mari came up behind him, trying to ensnare him with his Innocence-wire. Kanda vaulted over him and ran off; there was absolutely no way for him to win against three exorcists, expecially if he had no power as a Noah. And he could feel it; the emptiness inside him where there should have been music, the lack of power pounding through his veins like a poison.

He had no power; his predecessor had uprooted the Musician's talents and bestowed them upon another.

Well, not quite no power… he lifted the flute to his lips and began to play.

They were following Timcanpi when Rabi heard something.

"Do you hear that?"

"It sounds like a flute," Linali frowned.

"Is that what a flute sounds like?" At the others' disbelieving stares, he shrugged. "Mana was poor, so we never got to see anything fancy like the opera. And Master was even worse, believe it or not."

"I'll take you someday," Rabi promised. "It's cool."

Then they rounded the corner.

"What is that?" a level three akuma asked. The exorcists, of course, had jumped and hidden themselves behind some convenient bushes.

"Found them!" another akuma said from directly behind them.

Okay, maybe not so convenient. The three exorcists dodged a blast; the akuma made to chase them, but ran into a barrier and exploded.

"The barrier's powered by Innocence," Allen reported, his eye activated. "There's more akuma, but they can't cross it."

Dodging a bullet from Judgement, Kanda felt one of his akuma (_his_ akuma!) die. One of the others sent him a blurry image of several figures dressed in black. He stopped playing, and his illusions dispersed.

"Beansprout's here," he grumbled as Lavi, Linali, and Allen ran up, Innocence invocated.

He heard the faint, discordant music of the Ark.

"You look like you're in trouble," Tyki said, stepping through. "What happened to the akuma?"

"Are you going to help?" Kanda snarled. "If not, get the hell away from me-AAAAAH!" He stumbled sideways, clutching his side where a giant, thorny vine ripped through his flesh.

"Why did you do it, Yuu-kun?" General Tiedoll asked sadly, readying Eden for another blow.

"How troublesome," Tyki said. "I believe that I shall retreat. See you if you survive." Kanda flinched as one of Judgement's bullets flew back and slammed a hole in his lower abdomen.

"This is revenge for earlier, isn't it?" he grumbled as the other Noah vanished.

Kanda felt the rest of the akuma self-destruct and decided that if the Earl was going to betray him or even hold him in such low regard as to send him on a virtual suicide mission, he would gain his revenge on the Earl. He raised the flute to his lips and began playing.

The Earl sat at his piano (such a versatile instrument) and cursed as the last vestiges of control of the Ark vanished. Rhode opened up a door and ran in, screaming much of the same.

"That black sheep," he muttered. "He will die. Eventually.♥"

"Duke Millennium?" Rhode asked.

"Go prepare the new Ark," he ordered. "It's time to abandon this old one. And then we go retrieve our fledgling musician."

Cross watched the kid play. He was pretty good, but he didn't have half the power or control of his predecessor. In fact, he had almost nothing.

Still, the illusions the kid had summoned had been half interesting. They tied into the reports of his Innocence, at least. As soon as the former exorcist stopped playing, Cross aimed Judgement at the traitor's head. At point blank range, it would be impossible to miss. Beside him, Tiedoll and Mari prepared for the same.

It was this scene that three exorcists and one novice General ran into.

"Bakanda!"

"Shut the hell up!"

"This is troublesome, Yuu-chan."

"Don't call me by my first name."

"Kanda, why?"

"Ask me again when I know."

"Please describe to me the process of becoming a Noah so I may record it for posterity."

"Eh?" Everyone stared at Bookman.

"Aniki!" the girl from earlier screamed, running up and glomping Kanda, who just stared.

"I'm not your brother, older or not!"

"You're right, you're not," Lulubell agreed, morphing from her earlier form. "But you smell nice, and Earl-sama wants to see you."

"Let _go_ of me."

"That's not nice of you, is it?♥" the Millennium Earl asked with what Kanda in his more blasphemous days had termed "The Goddamned Whale Grin." "Come on, we're moving to the new Ark."

"What about the old one?" Kanda asked stiffly.

"It will remain until we figure out how to destroy it," Lulubell said dryly. "I believe that for right now, Earl-sama will try to figure out exactly what you and your annoying predecessor did to the Ark's controls."

"I have no idea," Kanda admitted. "It just happened."

"All the more reason we need to get you sorted out, dear,♥" the Earl chirped as he pulled out Lero. "Before something else like this comes up. Ja ne, exorcists!"

Kanda sagged mentally in relief as he realized the Earl had not left him. Where had that thought come from, anyways?

Right. Blame it on the Noah.

As the new 'gate' opened under his feet, Kanda wondered just how much becoming a Noah had changed him.

It was a rather disturbing thought.

"What are you doing here, Master?" Allen rounded on General Cross. "And what do you know about Kanda that we don't?"

"Allen-" Linali tugged his jacket.

"Support me!"

"No, Allen, this is important!"

"The Ark's floating behind you, stupid student." Cross smirked, and Allen glared at him balefully.

"I wonder what they're doing in there," Allen said.

"I do too."

"What are you doing, Earl-sama?" Rhode asked. Kanda had asked him that question numerous times and had not gotten an answer.

"I'm checking to see what remnants Yuu-kun's predecessor left behind when he died to influence the next Musician,♥" the Earl explained. Kanda felt slightly insulted that she was higher up in the Earl's hierarchy than he was.

"And that's why you're having me take my shirt off and do random poses?" Kanda asked crossly. "And why I'm going to wear a kimono?"

"Think of it as a really long yukata,♥" the Earl said absentmindedly, feeling up the rapidly fading tattoo on Kanda's chest. The scratches left by the various Innocence were still open and showed no signs of healing. "Lift your left arm, please. I want to see how this thing is attached to your body."

"What the hell?"

"Don't curse, Yuu-kun. After all, you are one of my precious children and my children do not behave that way.♥"

Kanda blamed the inexplicable feeling of reverent awe and love towards the Earl as a side effect of the poking.

A really random side effect.

"Are you done yet?" Rhode asked, licking a giant lollypop.

"I suspect the influence will fade with the tattoo," the Earl mused. "Certainly an interesting curse, meant to kill all his descendants before they could assert their Noah, but the Innocence messed things up as usual.♥"

"Are we done now?" Kanda asked dangerously.

"Don't be rude, Yuu-kun." The Earl brushed away Kanda's apology. "Come now, I want to add something on to help you.♥"

"Hai."

So he had to endure another half hour of the Earl drawing another pretty sign, mostly at the base of his neck but also trailing down between his shoulder blades, holding his hair and feeling far too much like a girl for his own happiness.

And then the Earl performed the spell. The very painful spell. And at the end of it all, he could feel a sort of devoted one-way empathy to the Earl. Sort of. It wasn't very strong.

"Hey, isn't that-" Rhode began.

"It's just to make sure our newest family member doesn't become subverted again,♥" the Earl explained in his cheerful, malicious way.

"But an _obedience spell_?" Tyki had come. Kanda knew he should be feeling rather resentful, but somehow he just couldn't seem to muster up the feeling.

"It's probably for my own good so I don't run off the next time I see Innocence. Besides, Earl-sama knows more about my abilities as a Noah than I do," he said instead.

The other two Noah looked at him with something akin to pity. He looked at them, annoyed. "I was being sarcastic."

"Now, could you please tell me the exact coordinates of the Dark Order's headquarters? And you should start listening to your Noah.♥"

"The psychopathic voice inside my head I've been trying to ignore ever since I came here? Of course, Earl-sama."

"Whatever happened to 'hell no'?" Rhode teased.

"Obedience spell," Kanda replied sarcastically. "Actually, it's that Earl-sama gets his was all the time."

"All the time?"

"You ever tried saying no to him?"

"Don't call my artwork an obedience spell," the Earl chirped in. "The monstrosity Cross uses on that cadaver of his is an obedience spell. Mine simply keeps his mind on the right track.♥"

"What's the difference?" Tyki deadpanned.

The entire group laughed. Kanda looked around; it felt like he'd come home at last.

Like the Earl said; Kanda's new spell ain't for obedience. It's to help keep his mind off the exorcist side of things to counteract the Fourteenth's spell-thingamajig.

And for all those icky reactionaries out there; be glad I didn't make Kanda female. Or a kid.

I just tweaked a few things.

Please R&R. I'm typing this at one in the morning. And the coyotes are howling. Right outside my house. (It's actually kinda disturbing, since we have glass doors.)

And finally, continue or no?


	2. Chapter 2

"_I, hate, everything about you." _

Kanda stared at the glass of liquor in front of him. "What the hell are we doing in a gay bar?" he grumbled. "And why is there a gay bar here in the first place?"

"Well, even in Rome the people have to cool off, eh?" Tyki smirked back, tossing down his nth one of the night. "What, you follow temperance?"

"European stuff is crap," Kanda retorted, grimacing slightly as he choked the whatever-the-crap-it-was down his throat. "It burns!"

"Ha! You don't drink! All alcohol burns!"

"Not sake."

"Hey, who was the guy who couldn't even heal his own injuries and had to have Duke Millennium do it?"

"That's off topic!"

"So?" Tyki downed another drink.

"Why the hell are we here in the first place?"

"Because I like the nightlife! It's so hot in the red-light districts!"

"I'm leaving." Kanda rose, but Tyki dragged him back down again.

"Nuh-unh," the other Noah admonished. "Don' wantcha gettin' lost."

"You're _drunk_."

"There's nothing wrong with that."

Kanda snarled and left.

"I don't believe it," Linali said.

"It is rather unlikely," Rabi agreed. "Such an occurrence has never happened before."

"But why?" Linali seemed to be upset. "He just- he was…"

"Stupid idiot," Allen grumbled. "I just can't believe it!"

"Start believing, stupid student," Cross said, recreating a certain diagram on paper. "Because it's true."

"Eh?" Allen couldn't quite believe his master had just said something sensible.

"So if you extend this line to here and put that one over there, you can do this. By combining that with those symbols and melding the whole into these shapes, I see how you can do that." Everyone stared at the muttering General.

"Eh?"

"And if you put those with this, by combining the two you get-"

"What are you talking about?" General Sokaro asked.

"What are you doing here?"

"I've been ordered to help you track down the renegade, preferably alive. Didn't you get the instructions?"

Everyone looked at each other in confusion. "No," they chorused.

"What, did you forget to turn on your golems or something?"

Linali and Allen sweatdropped, Lavi faceplanted, Bookman looked forbidding, and Cross took a drag on his cigarette.

Because, other than Cross, who had no golem, they had all forgotten to do so.

"Timcanpy!" Allen called, running off in search of his golem.

"Eeew! A stain!" Linali squealed.

"We have some documents to copy," Bookman and Lavi said.

Cross blew some smoke into the other general's face. "No golem."

Sokaro briefly wondered whether Kyouki would take offense if he used it to gut the stupid exorcists. Especially the annoying, chain-smoking general.

For the nth time, Kanda wondered what had possessed the other Noah to drag them out in the middle of nowhere.

There were plains. Just flat plains. Green, rolling, flat, and featureless as far as the eye could see.

"I think we're lost," Tyki said.

"You're the one who wanted to lead even though you were drunk," Kanda sniped. "And why the hell are you smoking when we're standing on the world's largest tinder pile?"

"I think we're somewhere in Texas, the United States," Tyki offered.

"Maybe Rhode will find us," Kanda said, squashing a gopher that was trying to eat his shoe to death.

"If she even bothers looking," Tyki grumbled. "Race you in a random direction!" He sprinted off.

"WAIT! COME BACK, AHOU! WHERE THE F--- DO YOU THINK YOU'RE F---ING GOING!" Tyki was already a small dot on the horizon. _'How f---ing much did he drink last night?!' _

"NYAH NYAH!"

"()&()&UIOY())&&) ()&(&&I!!!!!!!!!!!!" Kanda chased his probably-still-drunk partner somewhere northwest, where they would end up across a desert and in a small, newly founded city called 'Las Vegas'.

But for now, he had to chase his crazy partner/brother/former foe across Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada.

At least it wasn't over seven seas, across the seven continents, past the Mountains of Doom, and over the River of Fire. Whatever the last two were.

"Oh, California!" a wagon pioneer warbled. "Yer a state t'me!"

"You mean the Bear Flag Republic?" Linali asked carefully.

"Soon to be the thirty-seventh state of the US of A!"

"Hunh?"

"It's just politics, Allen. Nothing to really worry about."

"Record this for posterity, Lavi!"

"I'm doing it, Panda!"

"Aaargh! Yer stupi' papers gave me uh papercut!"

"Keep writing!"

And so, the (not so) merry, (overly) intrepid Exorcists made their way into the heart of the American West.

"Next stop, Las Vegas!"

"Waah! Tyki and Yuu are lost! Lero!"

"I'm sure Tyki just got drunk again," the Earl said, knitting what had to be the world's largest sock. "He tends to get lost that way.♥"

"I'll go look for them!" Rhode chirped, opening a cross-dimensional doorway. After all, Tyki got into the… weirdest… solutions when he wandered off drunk.

Finding Eaze had been one of them.

For the fifteenth time, Kanda swiped the glass of alcohol from his partner's hands. Tyki might be a Noah, but Kanda was sick and tired of babysitting the drunk.

"Give it back!"

"No! Go get a hangover!"

"I don't get hangovers! Just drunk!"

"Where's the logic in that?!"

"Then you drink it!"

Twenty shots later, Kanda was feeling distinctly unwell. "Guess I know where your hangovers go," he muttered.

"That's just being drunk," Tyki explained. "Having a hangover is much worse than that."

Kanda just pulled off the gag reflex and barfed up most of the alcohol he had consumed, making him feel marginally better. (AN: He has no tolerance whatsoever, lol.)

"Alcohol!" General Sokaro barked, sliding into the stool next to the pair. He'd obviously been bar hunting from the way he smelled as if he bathed in cheap gin.

"Gimme your best!" Cross called, joining him. Kanda and Tyki nearly attacked before they realized the two Generals were too soused to even listen to their Innocence and realize that Noah were sitting RIGHT NEXT TO THEM.

Kanda looked at the small, half-filled glass of amber liquid with new respect.

"Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Cross drawled.

"We should try this to Duke Millennium someday," Tyki whispered to Kanda as the two began to slowly, unobtrusively sneak out the door, partially because they didn't have the money to pay the ridiculously high tab.

"Where are you going?" Kanda cursed mentally; it was just their luck to pick the one saloon with a bouncer.

"They're paying for us. My friend here's their associate; they won't mind," Tyki explained. "It's the uniform, see?"

Kanda pointed to the rose cross. The bouncer looked unconvinced but let them go.

"Move," he grumbled, blaming the Noah for making his life complicated. "What're you stopping for?" He pushed the older man, accidentally causing the town's biggest traffic snarl of the day.

"I'm sor-" he began, stopping when he realized who he was talking to. "Beansprout!"

"I'm not a beansprout!" Allen snapped. "And what are you doing here?"

"I thought you hated the Earl," Linali added quietly from her seat on the ground.

"I don't," Kanda grumbled. "At least not anymore."

"Don't give me all that 'I've seen the error of my ways and reformed' crap," Lavi said, grabbing the front of Kanda's shirt. "It's not like you!"

"Lavi! Don't participate! Just watch!"

"Duke Millennium just opened up the empathic link between himself and us Noah," Tyki explained.

"It's not as if it's going to be an obsession," Kanda grumbled, half-apologetically.

"It might be," Tyki said ominously. "Your predecessor was that way. It's another form of an obedience spell, but much more effective, since you don't fight it."

"I won't," Kanda said flatly. "I refuse to."

The exorcists had all gone silent now, watching the dialogue with intense concentration. Lavi and Bookman scribbled notes; this was prime material, never before recorded.

"Walker!" Toma the Finder ran up. "Who is- eeek! Noah!"

"Where did the Finder come from?" Kanda asked, disgusted. The ground rumbled.

"Earthquake!" Rhode chirped, walking out of a keyhole-shaped door that had risen from the ground.

"Was it?" Tyki asked.

"Are you still drunk?" Rhode asked curiously, wrinkling her nose. "I wanna try!"

"No. I refuse to deal with two drunk Noah," Kanda said. "Help me drag him home and you can come back and get as drunk as you want."

Rhode considered. "Okay!" Together, they forcibly dragged Tyki through the doors, which slammed shut behind him.

Kanda blinked. They were in a room with a single, thronelike chair and numerous toys. The door behind them closed and vanished.

"Sit," Tyki offered. "We'll be here a while."

Kanda stared at the other Noah, tense. After a while, he sat.

And they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

"I think she forgot about us," Kanda said.

"She'll remember," Tyki said. "Eventually."

"That's supposed to reassure me?"

"Yes."

"I can't stand it in here anymore! I'm going to go insane. And I want to get _out_."

"How?"

"I'll…. I don't know. I'll just operate the Ark or something!"

"The last time you tried playing something you cut the Ark from Duke Millennium's control," Tyki said dryly, pulling out and lighting a cigarette. The air was already hazy with smoke. "I doubt that was your intent, but you're welcome to try. Just don't get us stuck in between dimensions or something. Then they'll never find us."

"Rhode won't be upset you polluted one of her worlds?" Kanda asked.

"Nope." Tyki took a drag and lay down, pulling a flute from under one of the toys. "What the hell is this doing here?"

"Give it to me," Kanda said. "I think I know how to get us out."

Tyki handed it to him, and Kanda lifted the flute to his lips, desperately wishing to get back to the new Ark and that his idea would work.

After the first few notes, he felt something in the fabric of the world beneath him ripple. As he kept playing, the disturbance became greater, until the floor _rippled_.

The two of them dropped into Earl-sama's chamber in a flurry of large, overly fluffy teddy bears.

"Hoo, you learned how to use your talent, Yuu-kun," the Earl cheered. "That it requires wishing for something and for the wish to come true. By the way, where's Rhode?♥"

"Is that so?" Kanda grumbled. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"You have to figure such things for yourself,♥" the Earl replied.

"Rhode's in Las Vegas getting drunk," Tyki said. "Yuu let her."

"WHAT?!" the Earl yelped. "I have to go get her. Bye!♥" The Earl disappeared in a ripple of darkness, leaving the two Noah alone.

"Why am I the one with the useless ability?" Kanda asked rhetorically.

"'Cause you're new," Tyki replied, blowing out some smoke.

Cross and Rhode were both drunk to high heaven and commiserating boisterously when the Earl came, hiding a sweatdrop as he dragged the eldest Noah away. There was absolutely no way he was ever allowing her to drink again.

Funnily enough, Cross didn't even notice that his impromptu partner had left, instead cornering some poor cowpoke into singing with him. All the rest of the bar's patrons looked terrified, and the exorcists had their explicit orders not to interfere. Goes to show how much power the Generals have and how messed up the Order's hierarchy is.

Still, as the Earl dragged his errant sacrifice home, he decided he'd rather not listen to her prattle on about the pink sheep jumping the green clouds and blue grass eating the akuma.

Some things were just too weird to describe.

Which is why Kanda and Tyki found themselves searching for her whenever she disappeared to get drunk because they had introduced her to alcohol in the first place….

Kanda opened a door in the Ark. Inside, an opened Bible lay in front of a covered painting, art supplies laid out next to the canvas.

"_And so they hung the crown of thorns upon His head"_

-Corinthians 12:23

The cover fell to the floor, unnoticed. Kanda touched the ancient book, curious as to its origins. If the Earl hated the Order, which was part of an organization built on the credence of the Bible, what was one doing here?

Then he turned to the painting and hissed in surprise.

Allen woke up with a raging headache and a few dozen akuma to destroy. Linali, Lavi, and Bookman were already busy.

"What happened?"

"You got steamrollered by an unhappy Earl dragging out a drunk Rhode Camelot," Lavi explained, choking down an inappropriate laugh. His opponent, a level two, saw his aborted reaction and attacked him furiously.

"Invocate!"

"You do realize your Innocence makes you look like a murderous clown?" Lavi called to him.

"What about the akuma!" he yelled back.

"They're mostly evil and demented!"

"Edge End!"

"Waah! The giant Mugen-compass is spinning again!" Linali wailed. "Why won't he stop moving around?"

"'Cause he's an idiotic assho'!" Allen screamed, dodging a ball of some sort of crackling energy and slicing through the akuma that had launched it.

BAM BAM BAM

"You guys were taking too long," Cross explained, lighting a cigarette. The other exorcists sent him dark looks. "What?"

They snorted.

"He's somewhere in California," Cross determined. "Let's go."

It was a painting of Jesus at the Ascension. The crown of thorns was clearly delineated upon his forehead, but instead of the usual prickly laurel, familiar black crosses were embedded into the skin. Underneath a shock of black hair, the dark-skinned face looked almost bored. His mouth was open as if preaching or singing. Coming from heaven was the gate to the old Ark, silhouetted by the figure of the Earl.

Jesus was a Noah.

"Yo," Tyki said from the doorway, nearly giving Kanda a heart attack and earning himself a punch in the face. "Duke Millennium's back-holy, shit! That picture'd be controversial if the Order ever got its hands on it. Did you do that?"

"No, And?"

"He wants to see you and Lulubell. You might want to hurry up; Lulubell really hates stragglers, and she's already there. Ja!"

"What about you?" Kanda asked, the words coming from his mouth before he could stop himself.

"I'm off to track down General Cross," Tyki called back, waving and disappearing into the dark. "Bye!"

Kanda cursed, covered the painting up again, and went off to rejoin the Earl.

"Why am I getting the eerie feeling I'm being watched?"Allen asked.

"It's not akuma," Linali said.

"Master already left," Lulubell told him when he got there. "He wants us to track down Innocence in California and destroy it. The Ark is already over the state."

"Why do I feel like I'm being watched?" one Finder asked another.

"It's just the new surveillance cameras they installed," Jerry said, dishing them some food and flouncing off to make more.

"Creepy," the Finder said, moving to an unoccupied table.

"Let's eat," the other agreed.

Up in the rafters, Rhode smirked. It was fun skipping school to spy on the enemy! Never mind that she never went to class anyways. She shifted so she was directly over the two, staring at the point between his shoulders that always made him nervous. He shuddered and ate fast.

A few days later, he would fall into a coma, go insane and attempt to attack his friends, and die on his next mission.

Kanda stared at the land around him.

"I hate California," he grumbled, shaking his head. A white woman washing her clothes at the river cursed him and yelled at him to move "his godforsaken yeller ass outta here" or she would call the authorities.

"Where the hell are we?" Lulubell agreed. She had taken the form of his 'wife', and Kanda still couldn't get used to his presence. The woman's voice grew shriller. "That woman's a pest."

"Then get rid of her," Kanda replied crossly. Lulubell smirked. Within seconds, she had swapped her right hand for a long, flexible spear and run the woman through. "Let's just keep walking."

And so they continued, reveling in the majestic mountains, the incredibly blue sky and fluffy white clouds, the strong, ancient redwoods, and the clean, refreshing scent of pine, dirt, and blood.

Kanda looked at the map again. "Where is San Francisco?"

"I think we're going in the wrong direction," Lulubell said.

"Why didn't you say that before?"

"You never asked, and I wasn't sure. But you see, the sun's in the wrong place. It should be to our right, not our left."

With a snarl, Kanda turned in the other direction and began walking back.

Tyki stared at the party, the irony of the situation fully manifesting in his mind. The exorcists were tracking a Noah who was hunting an Innocence. He, a Noah, was stalking the exorcists and was probably next on their list. He watched them pick their way through an abandoned mine as they followed the Innocence sword.

He should get rid of it or something. Perhaps the former exorcist would like to destroy it himself.

He fiddled around with the idea in his mind for a while before walking straight through the detritus and unknowingly spawning several hair-raising ghost stories.

The pair stopped at a Japanese encampment, where they were urged to perform something. Kanda looked at the refugees from his country, not one of which was an akuma, and wondered why the Earl had not bothered to kill them off before now.

Lulubell had finished singing something, and it was her turn. Feeling pressured, he glared at her surreptitiously and opened his mouth to say something when the Noah hissing around in his mind decided to manifest.

"_And then the boy…_

_Drifted off to sleep,_

_Breathing heavily… the flames_

_Within the ash, welling up,_

_One by one, that beloved face,_

_Thousands of dreams upon this earth._

_As your silver eyes tremble on_

_That night, a shining 'you' is born._

_Hundreds of millions of months and years,_

_No matter how many prayers_

_Are returned to the earth,_

_I shall continue to pray._

_Please, give this child love,_

_Joined hands, and a kiss."_

Their audience broke into applause.

"I never knew you could do that," Lulubell whispered to him.

"I didn't either."

"Well, the Innocence doesn't look like it's here, so let's leave."

"We need to go now," Kanda told their audience. "We have to be somewhere by tomorrow, but thank you for your hospitality." He bowed and the two Noah slipped away before anyone could stop them.

"Do you think we should have told them about the man-eating wolves?" Chiyo asked her husband.

"They probably already know," Tama replied instead. "Obaa-san."

"Hey, Master, what do you know about the Fourteenth?" Allen asked. Cross stopped and fixed his student with a cold stare.

"How do you know about him?"

"Leverrier told us to ask you about him," Linali said. "He wouldn't give us the details."

Cross remembered how to breathe. "Well," he began. "The Fourteenth was a Noah."

"A Noah?" Linali asked.

"Quiet. Do you want to hear? Anyways, a few years back- actually, over a decade now, come to think of it- the Fourteenth decided he didn't want to be allied with the Earl anymore and defected. The Earl wasn't very happy, of course, mostly because of what the Fourteenth could do." Cross stopped, looking pensive.

"What did he do?"

"Shut up, stupid student. The Fourteenth was also called 'The Musician' because of his talents regarding Noah's Ark."

"The Ark? As in from the Bible?"

"What other? Anyways, along with Rhode Camelot, the first Noah, the Fourteenth could control the Ark. After he left, he placed a curse on the Ark so that it was tied to Edo, in Japan, by something called the 'Edo connection'. Even now, the Earl can't do anything about it."

"So what happened to him then?"

"Lavi, stop asking. He disappeared for a few years until the Earl killed him off," Cross said carelessly, dropping his cigarette butt and grinding it to ashes under his heel. "And that's what you're for."

"Me?"

"What're you looking so scared like that for? Yes, you."

"Why me?"

"You and Timcanpy, actually. The Earl created and moved onto a new Ark built from the old one, and that download is almost complete. Already, the new one is partially functional. Soon, he will finish the new Ark, and the old one will vanish."

"You want me to restore the old Ark?"

"Who said anything about restoring? We're going to prevent the thing from downloading in the first place!"

"Lero!" the umbrella screamed. Rhode was strolling down the street, ignoring whispered accusations of indecency from the gathered knots of women. She liked short skirts.

She skipped on, narrowly avoiding a shower of something yellow, lumpy, and smelling from a second story.

"Lero!" The umbrella wasn't so lucky. Rhode ignored him and moved on.

"Where's the Innocence?" she asked. Everyone around her shifted away nervously. Innocence? Whose innocence?

"It's over there, lero." Rhode skipped off happily. Everyone moved from her path, not wanting to lose anything inadvertently. There were hungry-looking zombie-people following her…

Thus, Hollywood was born. (Several decades later)

"Konnichiwa," the old woman said. The small village looked slightly out of place among the enormous redwoods.

"Konnichiwa, obaa-san," Cross said, bowing. Awkwardly, the others followed. "This is Chiyo," he hissed out the side of his mouth at them.

"Cross-san," the old woman said. "It has been a long time."

"Several years," Cross agreed. "I'm looking for someone. He looks like this. Have you seen him?" He pulled out a photo.

The old woman peered at it nearsightedly. "He was here," she said. "But he's moved on. A nice boy, he was. Her, too. He looks unhappy in that picture, though."

"Someone else was with him?" the exorcists' attention peaked.

"Claimed to be his wife. Shorter than him, pretty, hair just like his." Chiyo paused. "She seemed… off. Like she was someone else, you know. Not who she pretended to be. Say thanks to him for singing to us if you meet him, will you?"

"He sang to you?" A dangerous note entered Cross's voice.

"Nothin' by it, Cross! He was just a nice boy with a lovely voice wanting to help his sister left behind in Japan, that's it. Sang about her, you know."

"Why would he want to go back to Japan when he knows there's nothing there?" Cross asked. "All the land is an akuma breeding ground, now."

"It's his life to spend as he wishes," Chiyo said sadly. "But come. I will tell you news of Hokkaido and of Okinawa."

Allen and Linali made identical questioning noises, and the woman noticed them for the first time. "They are the last two places able to hold off the Earl's akuma," she explained. "They have anti-akuma barriers and people with weapons that can drive them off there. All refugees have either gone there or died."

"But they are closed societies," Cross said. "No one leaves, so no one enters. They are dead to the world."

"Master?"

"Shut up. I'm talking."

"I see," Chiyo said sadly. "Then he lied to us."

"No, he did not," Cross said calmly, shifting Judgement in its holster. "He really is looking for someone. That person may or may not be his sister, but I truly believe he will continue searching, even though he is no longer capable of finding that person."

"So even you don't know who?"

"He may have been telling you the truth," Lavi drawled cheerfully. "He's odd like that."

"He was like that," Linali agreed. "But he never mentioned a sister."

"Or anything else about his past," Cross grumbled. "Even the Order's records had gaps. Plenty of them."

"You looked through his private files?" Linali gasped. "Who else did you look up?"

"No one else, of course," Cross replied. "I was using Maria."

Allen muttered something on privacy.

Notes:

Okay. The song-thingie Kanda sang was from the manga. Hoshino Katsura-san has the rights. Kanda probably doesn't have a sister. (That would be weird.) And until Hoshino-san reveals whatever Kanda's past is, I'm taking artistic license.

About the lotus; Hoshino-san claimed that the lotus symbolized Kanda's search for the person. Now that it's dead (see first chapter), he can't find that person.

Whoever that person is.

Also, I'm typing this at one in the morning, I'm half asleep (pulled an all-nighter yesterday, lol), and the story's probably gone off on a weird tangent. My scroll bar says this chapter is fifteen and a half pages, I'm posting it.

Please review!


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